History Reminds Us that Vaccines Alone Don't End Pandemics
Encouraging news about several vaccines offers the possibility of bringing the coronavirus pandemic under control even as case numbers skyrocket. We can learn from history, however, that the country has a lot of work to do if we hope to beat covid-19 — even with a vaccine.
A century ago, during the 1918 influenza epidemic, accelerated efforts of medical researchers to discover, test and deploy an influenza vaccine did not produce an effective treatment or therapeutic. Medical authorities regularly reviewed experimental results and confirmed that although some serums did prevent the development of pneumonia in certain cases, none of the vaccines were useful in either preventing or treating influenza.
And yet, the process of researching, testing and recommending a vaccine in 1918 offers important insights, especially surrounding the importance of receiving clear, consistent and accessible guidance from public health organizations on the process for testing, evaluating and distributing vaccines. Perhaps most significantly, it confirms what the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, Anthony S. Fauci, recently emphasized: Even with vaccine, we must keep up mask-wearing and social distancing guidelines.
A century ago, as medical researchers searched desperately for a therapeutic for influenza, public health agencies and government officials offered divergent and often contradictory statements about the potential value of serums and vaccines. On Oct. 2, 1918, a photograph of Boston Mayor Andrew Peters receiving an “anti-influenza serum” administered by Timothy J. Leary of Tufts University was published in the Boston Globe. The paper reported that the mayor was “feeling fine” with “absolutely no after effects” after his second dose of the vaccine. Following a conference of local, state and federal health officials, Massachusetts State Health Commissioner Eugene Kelley declared, “We were all much interested and sympathetically so,” yet also conceded that more research was needed. The Boston Globe, however, concluded that the serum “is believed to be preventative as well as curative,” suggesting that this measure could decrease the number of cases and deaths, thus bringing the epidemic under control.
Yet this enthusiasm was more tempered in subsequent reports. One week later, a seemingly positive report from scientists convened by the Massachusetts State Board of Health appeared as “a bright beacon of hope on a darkened horizon of epidemic,” at a time when Boston had already recorded more than 3,000 deaths from influenza and pneumonia in just one month. But the full report confirmed that no statistical or experimental evidence indicated that the vaccine worked either prophylactically or as a treatment.